Several acute myeloid leukemia (AML) predisposition syndromes are caused by innate mutations in transcription factors that affect embryonic hematopoiesis, such as Gata2 and Runx1 (Babushok et al., 2016), suggesting that perturbations in embryonic hematopoiesis affect the adult HSC compartment. The gene discussed is GATA2; the disease is acute myeloid leukemia.